Drinking Song Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: A BCBC BCBC DDDD CCCC CACA ACAC CBCB CCCC CECE FCFC ACAC BCBC| INSCRIPTION FOR AN ANTIQUE PITCHER | A |
| - | |
| Come old friend sit down and listen | B |
| From the pitcher placed between us | C |
| How the waters laugh and glisten | B |
| In the head of old Silenus | C |
| - | |
| Old Silenus bloated drunken | B |
| Led by his inebriate Satyrs | C |
| On his breast his head is sunken | B |
| Vacantly he leers and chatters | C |
| - | |
| Fauns with youthful Bacchus follow | D |
| Ivy crowns that brow supernal | D |
| As the forehead of Apollo | D |
| And possessing youth eternal | D |
| - | |
| Round about him fair Bacchantes | C |
| Bearing cymbals flutes and thyrses | C |
| Wild from Naxian groves or Zante's | C |
| Vineyards sing delirious verses | C |
| - | |
| Thus he won through all the nations | C |
| Bloodless victories and the farmer | A |
| Bore as trophies and oblations | C |
| Vines for banners ploughs for armor | A |
| - | |
| Judged by no o'erzealous rigor | A |
| Much this mystic throng expresses | C |
| Bacchus was the type of vigor | A |
| And Silenus of excesses | C |
| - | |
| These are ancient ethnic revels | C |
| Of a faith long since forsaken | B |
| Now the Satyrs changed to devils | C |
| Frighten mortals wine o'ertaken | B |
| - | |
| Now to rivulets from the mountains | C |
| Point the rods of fortune tellers | C |
| Youth perpetual dwells in fountains | C |
| Not in flasks and casks and cellars | C |
| - | |
| Claudius though he sang of flagons | C |
| And huge tankards filled with Rhenish | E |
| From that fiery blood of dragons | C |
| Never would his own replenish | E |
| - | |
| Even Redi though he chaunted | F |
| Bacchus in the Tuscan valleys | C |
| Never drank the wine he vaunted | F |
| In his dithyrambic sallies | C |
| - | |
| Then with water fill the pitcher | A |
| Wreathed about with classic fables | C |
| Ne'er Falernian threw a richer | A |
| Light upon Lucullus' tables | C |
| - | |
| Come old friend sit down and listen | B |
| As it passes thus between us | C |
| How its wavelets laugh and glisten | B |
| In the head of old Silenus | C |
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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